Chasing Ghosts
by LVB
Summary: Her ghostly fingers trace Hermione's scars, delighting in her carvings. "So you'll never forget." Moments of sadness, of realisation and echoes of 'what could have been' continue to haunt Hermione as she desperately searched for a happy ending.


**Chasing Ghosts**

**Author:** LVB

**Disclaimer:** JK Rowling, Scholastic, WB etc are hosting the party and I'm just a gatecrasher.

**A/N:** Much thanks to my beta who miraculously can still find the time after so many years to give my stuff a once-over :)

**Warnings:** A bit of confronting imagery.

...

It happened first at midnight, during winter. Two warm bodies, closely entwined with matching softened smiles slept, bathed in the moonlight. Mere seconds later, _only seconds,_ did she feel it.

_This can't be happening_.

A scream, a howl, of surrender and loss permeates the winter air. Her cries are a call to arms; they are a declaration of war.

Pain. Indescribable pain.

Silent, still, unmoving.

They cannot fight an enemy, for she lies dead and rotting underneath the ground. Her wand, her gnarled hands and smile floats across the room and her image rests upon the bloodied sheets.

_Filthy half-breed soiled the bed, _she screams, her ghostly hands wrapping around her pretty neck. _Itty, bitty, blood stain._

The battle is over and Hermione has lost.

...

She floats alongside them as they walk, _ever so slowly_, to see the Healer_. I'll never leave you, Mudblood. _

"Let me be," Hermione whispers and for a moment, she thinks Ron hears her. The Battle to Save the Baby has passed and they have lost. She shrieks and dances with joy, running ghostly circles around them as they wait patiently for the Healer to arrive. Ron cannot and _must not_ see her.

Hermione does. She always does.

"The news is not good, I'm afraid, Mr and Mrs Weasley," the Healer says, sadness and despair marring what should have been an emotionless face.

_Why did you do this to me?_

_You deserved it. _

...

She follows Hermione everywhere. She sits on her desk, staring at her paperwork. She latches on to her robes and explodes with her down the Floo. She sits next to her while she bathes, gently and then furiously scrubbing at the darkest mark of all.

_Mudblood._

Her ghostly fingers trace the scars, delighting in her carvings_. So you'll never forget_.

Ron opens the door and Hermione swears, _swears_ he can see her. He walks over to the tub and takes a cloth and gently wipes down her back.

With a silent kiss, her shadow bids Ron farewell and then disappears.

Ron has been her warrior but even he can't seem to chase the ghosts away.

...

"I think I may have a solution," the Healer says. It has been years and days and months and minutes and seconds, _mere seconds_, since they saw him last. "It will be painful. More painful than I think you might be willing to endure, Mrs Weasley."

Ron shakes his head and then slams his fist upon her silence. "No."

Hermione begins to shake but then finds her strength. "It's not your choice to make," she tells him, standing and pulling her full height over him, as he sits and looks at her; startled and unsure.

In this moment of peace, nobody stands behind her, pulling at her hair and whispering awful, terrible things.

"Don't do it, Hermione," Ron pleads.

Life and happiness is not negotiable. "Tell me," Hermione urges the Healer, as an angry and resigned Ron helplessly sits across from his own personal nightmare.

The Healer won't look them in the eyes. "We'll use a Shield Charm around the baby," he begins, and before Hermione can interrupt in a Hermione-like fashion, he raises his hand, begging for her silence. "I understand that a Shield Charm cannot be used indefinitely. You, Hermione, will need to need to perform the charm during the pregnancy to keep it from disappearing. You will be put on a few different courses of potions, one to strengthen the Shield Charm, one to form another protective layer around the baby in lieu of a constant shield and another that will direct any energy that you may have to protect your baby."

The silence roars and so does Ron.

"You're barking mad!" he rages and Hermione is not sure that he understands. Ron is not sure Hermione understands.

"You won't be able to use magic at all during the pregnancy," the Healer continues, oblivious to a brewing civil war. "You will be very weak, Hermione and the potions, they will be painful. It will come to a point where it will be too much and at that point, we'll bring you back here and place you in a magically-induced coma until the baby is ready to be born."

Hermione barely blinks before snatching a quill from the Healer's desk.

"You'd as soon as sign your life away?" Ron snaps, snatching the precious quill from her stubborn hands.

"The treatment is very experimental," the Healer warns. Hermione is undeterred. She watches as flesh and bone begin to form before her very eyes. She sits on the desk and strokes the Healer's hair.

_Can't you see her? _She wants to scream.

_You've taken too much. _

_I'll take more, she vows. _

"Without it," Hermione says, clutching Ron's hand so fervently, "our baby will be a blood stain on the floor."

Ron signs the parchment. Hermione breathes.

...

She won't tell anybody and it's a vow. Not even as she clutches her nephew and feels her body start to shake. Not even as she hugs Ginny or accepts some tea from Harry.

"When are you due?" Molly asks her.

Nameless dates threaten to spill from her lips.

...

Her ghost sits beside her on the bed, tracing the scars on her arms. Ron is on a mission but Hermione isn't sure she will be here when he returns.

_It's time to sleep_, she whispers and places the most gentle kiss on her cheek.

"Will you be here when I wake up?" Hermione asks, afraid to know the answer.

She laughs and sneers and Hermione swears she will see that face again.

_Goodbye, Rose._

...

When Hermione awakens, all she feels is numbness. She looks around hurriedly, ignoring the after effects of the potion, desperately tugging at her blankets to feel her flat stomach.

"Where's my baby?" she screams, setting off charms that have Healers and medi-witches alike running to her aid.

_Don't you know she's a war hero? _

She cries for Rose and she cries for Ron until she sees them both standing at the door.

Ron places their baby, their Rose into Hermione's arms.

_Mudblood_ glows against Hermione's pale skin until Rose, with the tiniest fingers places them on top of her mother's throbbing arm.

They can see her now.

She's here.


End file.
